Monthly Archives: October 2008

Evidence-based reviews hereunder have warned since April ie for 6 months of the obvious fraud of modern touted designer appetite-weight suppressants (which among other adverse effects often cause depression if not suicide)

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The Sanofi-Aventis drug rimonabant was turned down in USA in Feb 2006, June 2007 and again April 2008, based on lack of efficacy and safety.

The question remains: why prescribe new designer drugs especially for overweight and type 2 diabetes with diet-resistant overweight, without a long trial record of both safety and efficacy,
when metformin and it’s parent herb galega officinalis titrated simply to tolerance has been the proven gold standard for centuries, losing on average 6% of weight (up to 20kg in 2yrs) and halving the incidence of new diabetes, while in diabetics it almost halves the death rate and most major chronic degenerative diseases of aging.

Based on the clear published evidence (of risk, and lack of long term benefit from rimonabant, and abundant evidence of the superiority of metformin) on which rimonabant was never licenced in USA , patients who were prescribed rimonabant in 2008 have a prima facie case for damages against both European Regulators, the NHS and doctors there who prescribed it.

and this month, for similar reasons, the Merck clone taranabant crashes out.

The for-profit Disease Industry and the researchers and Regulators they pay will never stop trying to promote the profitable new over the proven cheap old. So it’s up to consumers- the public- to seek out the evidence for themselves.

Orlistat (foul faecal problems) andsibutramine(hypertension, nausea/vomiting, palpitation, and sweating) have major potential adverse effects, and do not do as well as metformin for longterm reduction in all-cause mortality and major adverse outcomes.

now Anti-obesity drug use suspended23 Oct 2008 The European Medicines Agency is recommending doctors do not prescribe the anti-obesity drug rimonabant, also known as Acomplia – it says the risk of serious psychiatric problems and even suicide are too high.

Why accept risky mediocrenew drugs (sibutramine, orlistat) or risky bariatric surgery (40% complications in first 6 months)when only metformin simply adjusted to tolerance has been shown for decades to reduce all-cause mortality by at least 1/3 to 1/2, and even reduce cancer incidence.

Tesofensine seems similar to sibutramine in it’s potential to increase bloodpressure, dry mouth, nausea, constipation, hard stools, diarrhoea, and insomnia. But the longest trial so far seems to be only 24 weeks.

Most importantly, it is medical negligence to wait for frank obesity, instead of earlyprescribing metformin to tolerance to prevent progression from mild overweight to obesity, diabetes, vascular disease, depression and cancer.

It is common cause that our vital fatty acid levels are controlled through diet, in which the problem is excessive (meat/ plant) omega 6 (especially arachidonic, linoleic and gamma-llinoleic GLA acids) causing increasing relative deficiency of the crucial omega 3 neuro-fatty acids- the fish EPA and DHA.

“Modern Western diets typically have ratios of n−6 to n−3 in excess of 10 to 1, some as high as 30 to 1. The optimal ratio is thought to be 4 to 1 or lower. Excess n−6 fats interfere with the health benefits of n−3 fats; in part because they compete for the same rate-limiting enzymes. High ratio of n−6 to n−3 fat in the diet shifts the physiological state in the tissues toward many diseases: prothrombotic, proinflammatory and proconstrictive, heart attacks, thrombotic stroke, arrhythmia, arthritis, osteoporosis, inflammation, memory and mood disorders, and cancer . Adding more controversy to the n−6 fat issue is that the dietary requirement for linoleic acid (the key n−6 fatty acid), has been seriously questioned, because of a significant methodology error discovered by University Toronto scientist Stephen Cunnane 2003 that the seminal research used to determine the dietary requirement for linoleic acid was based on feeding animals linoleic acid-deficient diets, which were simultaneously deficient in n−3 fats. The n−3 deficiency was not taken into account. The n−6 oils added back systematically to correct the deficiency also contained trace amounts of n−3 fats. Therefore the researchers were inadvertently correcting the n−3 deficiency as well. Ultimately, it took more oil to correct both deficiencies. According to Cunnane this error overestimates LA requirements by 5 to 15 times.”

For this reason human experience has always shown that good fish intake throughout life promotes better health and mental and mood development.

Now Mucke and Sanchez–Mejia from Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and University of California write Oct 2008 “Tests on genetically engineered Alzheimer’s mice showed that reducing excess levels of omega 6 acid lessened animals’ memory problems and behavioural changes.. The most striking change in the Alzheimer’s mice was an increase in omega6 arachidonic acid metabolites in the brain memory centre that is affected early and severely by Alzheimer’s disease; too much arachidonic acid might over-stimulate brain cells, and that lowering levels allowed them to function normally.”

While population studies show convincingly that high fish oil intake associates with better learning and health, there are no trials showing that anything but these natural balanced marine oils (EPA plus DHA) give the global health benefit. This new Californian study reinforces that while plant oil intake rather than exclusive animal fat in the diet is crucial, it is fraudulent if not criminally dangerous to promote plant oil supplements when what most people (who now can rarely afford scarce fish- especially oily fish) need is at least a gram if not 4 grams a day of reasonably quality fish oil- of which cod liver oil may be the best. It is gross fraud for industry to remove the fish oil from fish during canning, then replace it with saline or plant oil as one often finds in eg tinned sardines (or margarines) – while the fish oil is reportedly then often used as animal feed, or exported, or recycled for aquaculture.

In an era when the survival (let alone fertility) of mankind for even another generation is no longer assured owing to the ongoing lunatic insatiable greed of most industrialized countries’ leaders, the failure to ensure at least about 10gms a week of fish oil to all from conception to dotage – or at least avoid plant oil supplements that worsen the omega 3 deficiency- is a crime, especially while Big Business is buying up marine oil resources let alone agricultural output for unnecessary extra biofuel. This must be outlawed.

Given the limitless availability of solar (and even safe nuclear) energy, there has been no need (except for corporate profiteering- disaster capitalism ) to use much fossil- or biofuel to produce power for decades, so there is no shortage of fossil (petroleum or coal) fuel reserves- essential as they are for eg producing ubiquitous plastics, the nuts and bolts of industry and homes.

And remind all that ALL “fish oil” is effectively synthesised ONLY by algae, plankton- which is apparently what crustaceans eg krill, and small fish live on (and in turn feed the big fish) to store “fish” oil- the EPA and DHA that are the key vital marine ingredients, which are the building blocks for our nervous system, cell membranes, clotting and anti-inflammatory immune systems.

So ALL “fish” oil is in fact marine vegetarian, the only source (apart from mother’s breast milk) providing us with the unique EPA-DHA omega 3 FFA as well as some essential vitamins A and D.

While not decrying the theoretical risk of neoangiogenesis, they remind that in humans metformin reduces incidence of cancer when itis used at modest daily doses to reduce hyperglycemia and insulin resistance;not at the 300fold higher bloodlevelsused in rodents and with superabundant nutrients used to grow cancer cells in petri dishes.

Vitamins may blunt cancer drugs- but this research by Mark Heaney et al at the Sloan Kettering was on lab bench cells and in mice, not in humans, and proved nothing.
While it used cancer-toxic prescription drugs, it used levels of vitamin C that are known to be ineffective against human cancers –

it used the doses found in oral supplements ie up to a few grams a day- which in rodents is equivalent to one-hundredth of the dose that Cameron and Pauling found works intravenously in humans.

This would be like using one-hundredth of the proven effective dose of an antibiotic against an infection- guaranteed to breed resistant infection, not cure.

Recent NIH studies, like Pauling and Cameron’s group, have confirmed that highdose vitamin C as given intravenously which is well tolerated, may indeed cause major cancer cell death when used either cycled with conventional cancer therapy, or in otherwise untreatable cancer.